Navient's nearly 1,000 layoffs include employees in Wyoming County

Kevin Oklobzija//February 8, 2024//

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Navient will eliminate nearly 1,000 jobs that are connected to offices in Wyoming and Chemung counties, though most of the employees work remotely and live outside of New York State.

The 945 workers managed through Navient’s office in the town of Perry, along with 43 employees managed by the Horseheads office, have been notified that layoffs will take place between May 6 and May 18.

A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) was posted on the New York Department of Labor’s website on Wednesday.

Of the 988 employees facing the layoffs, 116 live in New York, a Navient spokesperson said this morning. Additionally, approximately 800 of the jobs were categorized as temporary hires.

“These employees work to support a government program that is subject to public funding and may be ending soon,” said Paul Hartwick, corporate spokesperson for Navient. “It is always difficult to have to make announcements like this and we are proud of the work our employees do to support this important program.

“We are hopeful that the total number of job reductions is lower than the 989 noted in the WARN notice.”

Hartwick said the layoffs are not related to Navient’s student loan servicing division, which will be dropped by the company.

“All of these employees work in our business processing group and are not involved in student loan servicing,” he said. “Our business processing group provides services to government and other entities.”

Navient is transferring nearly three million loans to MOHELA (Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority), a former competitor in the the student loan serving industry.

In October of 2022, Navient subsidiary Pioneer Credit Recovery announced the elimination of 123 jobs based out of Perry and 105 in the Wyoming County village of Arcade.

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